Database Develop

Removed SD Card

Sorry if this has been adressed before, but i did use the search and i cannot quite figure out what to do next. I might have dropped my phone the other day, and since then none of my apps run from the SD becase it thinks that it was ejected. So, i wiped and installed a clean JackXrom again, and it was fine for about 20 min, then phone locked up, and when i restarted, i get the same problem. Should i format the partitions on the card perhaps? I was trying to avoid that, so any work around would be helpfull.
Latest radio, spl. Class 6 8 gig SD card.
Thanks.

te5ter said:
Sorry if this has been adressed before, but i did use the search and i cannot quite figure out what to do next. I might have dropped my phone the other day, and since then none of my apps run from the SD becase it thinks that it was ejected. So, i wiped and installed a clean JackXrom again, and it was fine for about 20 min, then phone locked up, and when i restarted, i get the same problem. Should i format the partitions on the card perhaps? I was trying to avoid that, so any work around would be helpfull.
Latest radio, spl. Class 6 8 gig SD card.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
sounds like a corrupted partition try repair ext file systems if that dosent work youve got to format partition and reinstall all apps.
btw does youre fat32 partition work?

te5ter said:
Sorry if this has been adressed before, but i did use the search and i cannot quite figure out what to do next. I might have dropped my phone the other day, and since then none of my apps run from the SD becase it thinks that it was ejected. So, i wiped and installed a clean JackXrom again, and it was fine for about 20 min, then phone locked up, and when i restarted, i get the same problem. Should i format the partitions on the card perhaps? I was trying to avoid that, so any work around would be helpfull.
Latest radio, spl. Class 6 8 gig SD card.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it only happened once it shouldn't be an issue, but if it does it wouldn't hurt to format your ext.
In recovery
mount -o rw /dev/block/mmcblk0p2 /system/sd
rm -r /system/sd/*

I tried repairing my ext, no luck.
Whenever i try to mount in recovery console i get error : No such file or directory

te5ter said:
I tried repairing my ext, no luck.
Whenever i try to mount in recovery console i get error : No such file or directory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds like you need to delete the partition and make a new one, as it can't be read. If you're going to use parted from you're phone then you'll probably have to start over and recreate fat (and linux-swap if you had one) too. If you're using paragon or Gparted you should be able to recreate just your ext.

I cant recall which tutorial i fallowed, but it was all done through the terminal or recovery. Could you possibly point me to the right thread?

AdrianK said:
Sounds like you need to delete the partition and make a new one, as it can't be read. If you're going to use parted from you're phone then you'll probably have to start over and recreate fat (and linux-swap if you had one) too. If you're using paragon or Gparted you should be able to recreate just your ext.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you can remember the start and end of youre ext partition i think you can do this in parted by typing print then note down the start and end then type mkpartfs primary ext2 start - end

te5ter said:
I cant recall which tutorial i fallowed, but it was all done through the terminal or recovery. Could you possibly point me to the right thread?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here you go, follow the second section.
http://android-simplicity.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-6-how-to-partition-your-sdcard.html

Everytime i try to mount in recovery i get "mount: mounting /dev/block/mmcblk0p1 on /sdcard failed: device or resource busy"
I'm lost.

pull your battery our for 30 seconds or so. remove your sd card then reinsert it and then try again. if that doesnt work then do what the others guys have said and try to reformat your sd card and start from scratch.

AdrianK said:
Sounds like you need to delete the partition and make a new one, as it can't be read. If you're going to use parted from you're phone then you'll probably have to start over and recreate fat (and linux-swap if you had one) too. If you're using paragon or Gparted you should be able to recreate just your ext.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually, with Parted you can just rm and mkpartfs any partition you want without affecting the other partitions.

I bit the bullet and just formated all the partitions.
Thanks anyways guys.

My advice for next time or any body else reading would be to download a live CD for ubuntu or fedora or similar and boot your PC off that - it's graphical and v. easy.
Or just dump windows altogether and go for linux ;-)
Smiffy.

Lordsmiff said:
My advice for next time or any body else reading would be to download a live CD for ubuntu or fedora or similar and boot your PC off that - it's graphical and v. easy.
Or just dump windows altogether and go for linux ;-)
Smiffy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah Gparted is amazing problem is then you have to walk the person through downloading, burning the image...which can be painful.

This is still happening, fresh format on sd card partitios and a wipe and clean install of Jacxrom.
Bad sd card? Or the phone?

JACxROM [v1.3]
I am attempting to flash to this ROM. Everything seems to go as describen in other posts, but when I power up the phone, I never make it past the splash screen. Any thoughts??

sorry
Sorry I posted this in the wrong place, I will move it.
rberger13 said:
I am attempting to flash to this ROM. Everything seems to go as describen in other posts, but when I power up the phone, I never make it past the splash screen. Any thoughts??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Bump, dead SD card?

partition corrupted anyway to recover?
I need help please!
I was running cyanogen 4.0.3.1 just installed today morning then changed theme to enoch 1.12 the newest one that worked fine. Updated the browser to loccys Then installed the HTC music and when finally rebooted the phone it was working fine until I noticed I had none of my apps on the sdcard.
All I have is syste/app folder which runs internally I think everything else does not work. It's like my sdcard is not in.
I shutdown rebooted and waited. Then removed sdcard rebooted and inserted the card one fully powered on and it is saying it wants to format it.
I get home turn my ubuntu system on and it detects it as a ext3 partition yet nothing inside. and now no fat32 partition or linux-swap.
anyways to recover or am I SOL?

SD card issues

So, I got a 4GB sdcard the other day. It came out of a blackberry a friend of mine was using. I formatted the card to FAT32 with the utility in windows 7, and everything seemed to be fine. I downloaded ext2fsd to be able to copy my ext partition to my new card. I followed the directions from the website about mounting the ext partition.
After I performed the steps above, my sdcard became unusable. I tried to take it out, and put it back in my card reader, and I get an error saying windows needs to format the drive, if I try to format it, it doesn't work. I've tried in gparted as well, and also get an error. I even tried from Amon's revorery, and sdparted in the console. I don't get errors with the latter two, but my card reader still says it's RAW.
I know that was lengthy, but I'm trying to figure out anymore steps to take, or if I should just throw the card away.
Thanks

ok..
wow.
You have to have 3 partitons. If you only format it with 1 partiton, you cant save data on a partition that doesnt exsist.
You have to go to recovery console and make a fat32, ext3 and linux swap partion.
I dont have the patience to go trhough it all with you because its in 100 different threads so .. use search?
Not trying to be rude, but this is stuff you can fin don your own here very easily if you werent expecting someone to do it for you
EDIT-- sorry, dont think i read fully what you did. I had this same thing happen today on a friends brand new 8gb.
HEres what I did since you have Amen ras recovery..
Format to just FAT32.
Turn on usb
give it a second to pop up and it will and check the size.
Then turn off the usb, go into parted on console, rm 1, then remake all 3 partitons according to the size of the card.
I suggest not using the full partiton in the recovery because it usualy screws up the swap.
From there you will be fine.
If it doesnt work that way, then im sorry, the card may be pooped or to low a class maybe?

crypysmoker said:
ok..
wow.
You have to have 3 partitons. If you only format it with 1 partiton, you cant save data on a partition that doesnt exsist.
You have to go to recovery console and make a fat32, ext3 and linux swap partion.
I dont have the patience to go trhough it all with you because its in 100 different threads so .. use search?
Not trying to be rude, but this is stuff you can fin don your own here very easily if you werent expecting someone to do it for you
EDIT-- sorry, dont think i read fully what you did. I had this same thing happen today on a friends brand new 8gb.
HEres what I did since you have Amen ras recovery..
Format to just FAT32.
Turn on usb
give it a second to pop up and it will and check the size.
Then turn off the usb, go into parted on console, rm 1, then remake all 3 partitons according to the size of the card.
I suggest not using the full partiton in the recovery because it usualy screws up the swap.
From there you will be fine.
If it doesnt work that way, then im sorry, the card may be pooped or to low a class maybe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I know you're not trying to be rude, but I know I need 3 partitions. I'm pretty aware of the way a sd card needs to be partitioned. I've tried everything mentioned. I think it's about time to call it quits. It's a class 2 card, so I don't think that's the issue, and I can't format in Ubuntu, or Windows. Oh well I suppose. Thanks.

You can try this app. Its called Sd formatter...it reformats the SD. IT worked for me.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html

cholito said:
You can try this app. Its called Sd formatter...it reformats the SD. IT worked for me.
http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/sd/download/sd_formatter.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I forgot to include this in the original list of things I tried, but I did give it a go. It is telling me the card is write-protected even though the switch on the adapter is set to the unlocked position. I've also tried it with a different adapter. I appreciate everybody's input.

well try using parted commands to write from block 0 to the last block and partition the whole thing as fat32
is that not working?

did you tried partitioning with RA 1.2.3 recovery?

@B-man007
I haven't tried writing the whole thing to FAT32 with parted. I'll give that a try tonight (don't have the card with me).
@cholito
I'm using RA 1.2.2, I think the script is the same, so I don't know that it would make a difference if I was using that or 1.2.3

[Q] Format SD card to ext2

I bought new SD card i want to wipe my phone completely and install Darkys Rom. I formated my new SD card to ext2 in Ubuntu but my phone didn't recognize the file system. Then i used Clockwork to format my (external) SD card and what i did i formated my internal SD card. I'm completely failed. Can somebody give me step by step tutorial how to format external SD Card to ext2 or ext4. Also i would like to know if i will be able to copy data under windows when the phone is connected through USB.
Thank you
Sorry for my English

Hi! Please tell me why do you want to format your SD card to ext2 or ext4? There is no need for that. Just format it tu FAT and that's it. If you want to apply lagfix then do it under recovery with the lagfix option under advanced features.
Greets from Croatia.

DanXo said:
Hi! Please tell me why do you want to format your SD card to ext2 or ext4? There is no need for that. Just format it tu FAT and that's it. If you want to apply lagfix then do it under recovery with the lagfix option under advanced features.
Greets from Croatia.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would like to have option to transfer bigger files than 4GB.

+1
how do I format my external SD card to ext2? I have Samsung Captivate. I got Cygwin, since I use Windows. Does anyone know what commands to type in cygwin?
I want to put files larger than 4GB on my card as well.
I think this will be useful for a lot of people.

I found a thread http://android.modaco.com/content/h...an-i-bind-mount-e-g-system-sd-xxx-sdcard-xxx/
But I am a noob in Linux, and it would be GREAT to have step by step commands I would have to type in to format my external SD card, while its in the phone, etc
Possible problem I see is that the phone might not recognize external card if its ext2/3/4 . We might have to have small FAT32 partition on there as well? Or may be Froyo has that ability...

I'm looking into doing this myself, in my case so I can use symlinks to copy apps "data" folders (not the "data" partition, but the folders in /mnt/sdcard where apps put different things) onto the larger, external sdcard. It seems like it could be possible, just need to make sure the /etc/fstab file is updated properly, and of course make sure your kernel has the ext2 and/or ext4 modules loaded and running (which you probably will if you have a lagfix installed). I will play with this and post back my results here...

I have been looking for this myself for a while aswell, but on 4 different kernels and CWM v2.5 and CWM v3.0, I couldn't find any option on how to change the ext. SD to Ext4. If anyone knows how to then please post it here!
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App

So, progress report...
Still no success in this matter, although I have learnt a bit today about Android's internal workings. After backing up my system with CWR, I first tried formatting my ext sd card with gparted on my computer. Bad choice... Even though no config files were stored in it as far as I could tell, Android "panicked" and decided to restore all my configs to default, severely crippling my system and making a lot of apps force close when I restarted the phone.
At that point I thought, since it is now broken, might as well play with it So the next thing I tried was formatting my internal sd card (only the vfat partition that gets mounted in /mnt/sdcard) to ext2, but this time using the "busybox mke2fs" command, on the terminal emulator on the phone. This seemed to be successful, and I could read and write to the new ext2 partition, although for some reason, I got the feeling that apps kept resetting their settings (not sure what caused this, didn't really looked into it much). So once that was up and running, I decided to modify the /etc/fstab file, like I would do in a normal linux environment, to automount this partition on boot, as ext2.
At this point I rebooted the phone, but hmm... Android converted the partition back to vfat. Not good. This leads me to believe there must be some kind of "recovery" commands run on startup, in case the system detects the partition is not the default file system, or something along the lines of that. At this point it got kinda late, so I decided to document my progress, restore (which thankfully left my phone the way it was at the beginning of the day) and call it a day.
So, things that I still need to find out:
1) How does the system convert the partition back to vfat on startup and how could I avoid it from doing it? Maybe by having a small vfat partition to fool it into thinking all is good and normal?
2) When I had my partition as ext2, I couldn't see it on my computer when connected via USB (I'm on a linux system so the fs being ext2 is not a problem). Wonder why...
3) If I had a small vfat partition, how would I go about mounting the ext2 partition on the same mount point after the system checks the vfat one? Maybe by binding it? Gotta look into that as well.
4) Finally, have to check why the apps couldn't maintain their settings after a certain amount of time (for example, if I opened terminal emulator and changed the colors, these would stay if I closed and opened the app again right away, but if I closed it for a while, say half an hour, and opened again, it would be back to default...)
I'm on a Galaxy S btw. If anyone has any insight on any of these matters, would be much appreciated!

Any progress? Would really like to use +4 GB files.

morow said:
I would like to have option to transfer bigger files than 4GB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is immpossible because of hardware limitations of the SD card And often if the file is big it just fail!

Hristov1 said:
It is immpossible because of hardware limitations of the SD card And often if the file is big it just fail!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not true, read the rest of the thread before u post! Its not a hardware limitation, its because Android uses fat32 as filesystem.

hello everyone,
I just wanted to check to make sure that there is no solution for this 4gb limitation with Android yet? I too have been looking for something besides resizing files.
thanks
uki

I have ext2 on my external 32GB SDCard, just formatted it on my PC and put it in the phone, working without any problems. I just watched a full length 720p movie with DTS sound on my phone without having to re-encode the mkv
I'm using CM7.1 on my phone which auto-mounts the SDCard even with ext2. It won't work on stock ROM, but any kernel that has ext2 support should be able to read ext2-formatted cards but they might not auto-mount the sdcard.
On my PC I had to install a ext2 file system driver (google ext2fsd) for Win7 to be able to read the card when attaching the phone to the PC.

Partition SD card on Windows for people who can't be bothered to do it properly ;)

Firstly, BlaY0 has a great tutorial on how to do this properly, I suggest you do that to learn something.
Secondly, I cannot confirm that this is 100% safe. BlaY0's method should be 99% safe, I don't know about this as it is all automatic. BlaY0's method is tried and tested, this is not. I only used this method as I had a new SD card and I was in a hurry (exams coming up ) and I didn't have time to remind myself of BlaY0's method, and CWM only allows you to create up to 512mb partition. Also, I had a new computer, and I don't have time to set up ADB all over again.
Anyway, this is a method for people who don't want to use ADB to partition their SD card for A2EXT or DATA2EXT (a.k.a. apps2sd, etc etc), and are using Windows. If you're running linux, you could use something like gParted to partition it, not sure about OS X though. This method will allow a Windows user to create an EXT partition on their SD card alongside the FAT partition.
1) Download and install Minitool Partition Wizard, from here.
2) Open the program and delete all partitions from the SD card (which you will have inserted into the computer using an adapter or something). DO NOT DELETE THE PARTITIONS FROM THE HARD DISK! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DELETING. Oh, and make sure the SD card is backed up
3) Create a FAT32 primary partition. You decide how big you want it, but I'd advise you leave 1024mb (1gb) for the EXT partition.
4) Create an EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 (you decide) primary partition. Use up the rest of the space on the SD card.
5) Click assign/OK/whatever and wait for it to complete
6) You now have your partitioned SD card ready for an A2SD ROM!
7) You need to assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition. Not sure about the EXT partition. At first I forgot to do this and my card didn't show up in Windows, though Partition Magic can still see it.
Like I said, do yourself a favour and use BlaY0's method here, but if you're lazy or you don't have time or ADB doesn't work anymore, use this.

Nice one m8. You mentioned that CWM doesn't offer adding partitions bigger than 512 MB. Well, you're right but that's why I made a customized version of fake-flash that can do bigger... to 1 GB. It can even add second ext partition for some exotic types of data2ext. On top of that I added auto block alignment which is described in my guide (the manual one) so no more calculations and manual labour
Sent from my HTC Legend

BlaY0 said:
Nice one m8. You mentioned that CWM doesn't offer adding partitions bigger than 512 MB. Well, you're right but that's why I made a customized version of fake-flash that can do bigger... to 1 GB. It can even add second ext partition for some exotic types of data2ext. On top of that I added auto block alignment which is described in my guide (the manual one) so no more calculations and manual labour
Sent from my HTC Legend
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, I didn't know about your customized CWM, I think I'll just use that next time

BlaY0 said:
Nice one m8. You mentioned that CWM doesn't offer adding partitions bigger than 512 MB...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I remember some version had the ext menu up to 4GB
BlaY0 said:
On top of that I added auto block alignment which is described in my guide (the manual one) so no more calculations and manual labour
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't know that, good to know, for those of us still using data2ext, this is important...

Wish this was up earlier, spent an hour repartitioning my card using parted.Couldn't upgrade to EXT3 and ended up using CWM 3.0.2.8 to do it instead lol

What CWM is using under the hood for partitioning is actually parted.
Sent from my HTC Legend

Tried it but it didnt work not sure what the problem is...
formatted my SD to FAT 32 and reserved 1G for EXT3 both as primary partition in the Mini Partition Tool
Plugged it in my phone,
Ran ADB shell
# a2sd --enabled, rebooted
on reboot nothing seemed to have changed... went back to ADB shell
tried a2sd --free it says A2Sd is not active ...
a2sd -- enabled again and it says it is enabled but not active
so im guessing it cant read or recognize the EXT3?!
Any clues... i didnt want to move my Dalvik to SD ... should I try EXT4 or even EXT2?

QkSi1ver said:
Tried it but it didnt work not sure what the problem is...
formatted my SD to FAT 32 and reserved 1G for EXT3 both as primary partition in the Mini Partition Tool
Plugged it in my phone,
Ran ADB shell
# a2sd --enabled, rebooted
on reboot nothing seemed to have changed... went back to ADB shell
tried a2sd --free it says A2Sd is not active ...
a2sd -- enabled again and it says it is enabled but not active
so im guessing it cant read or recognize the EXT3?!
Any clues... i didnt want to move my Dalvik to SD ... should I try EXT4 or even EXT2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take me through what you did, step by step. You say you reserved 1G for EXT3, but did you actually format it as another partition?

QkSi1ver said:
Any clues... i didnt want to move my Dalvik to SD ... should I try EXT4 or even EXT2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It has been mentioned here like a gazilion times, boot up your device with logcat and see the first few lines...there is your answer!
Google how to wait for the device with logcat

1) Downloaded and installed Minitool Partition Wizard from your link. I got the free home edition
2) backed up my SD card and Open the program and delete my SD card partition ( which is in a card reader)
3) Created a FAT32 primary partition of 69xx MB and left the rest 1024 MB for the other unallocated space
4) Right click on the Unallocated Space to create an EXT3 as primary partition with the default cluster size.
5) At this point, it showed 2 partition on my SD, one with the drive letter for windows FAT32, and the 2nd one Ext 3 with 1GB and Primary. Clicked OK and Apply and wait for it to complete.
6) once complete , put it in phone, plugged usb and ran adb shell
7) ran a2sd --enable, it said reboot phone.. i made a mistake to reboot by adb the first time but then did the whole process again a 2nd time using reboot from the phone....
Tried logcat using this command "adb -d logcat>mylogfile.txt"
couldnt find the file anywhere ... if i dont redirect to the txt , it goes too fast to read and there's soo much debug messages what do i need to look for?
I thought it would save me time to get it done through windows... but its taking me as much time it w0uld probably get me with the manual way...
i'll give it a try tomorrow...
8) rebooted fine, and i was still low on space.. so went back in adb sheel to check a2sd --free but this is where it says not active..

QkSi1ver said:
1) Downloaded and installed Minitool Partition Wizard from your link. I got the free home edition
2) backed up my SD card and Open the program and delete my SD card partition ( which is in a card reader)
3) Created a FAT32 primary partition of 69xx MB and left the rest 1024 MB for the other unallocated space
4) Right click on the Unallocated Space to create an EXT3 as primary partition with the default cluster size.
5) At this point, it showed 2 partition on my SD, one with the drive letter for windows FAT32, and the 2nd one Ext 3 with 1GB and Primary. Clicked OK and Apply and wait for it to complete.
6) once complete , put it in phone, plugged usb and ran adb shell
7) ran a2sd --enable, it said reboot phone.. i made a mistake to reboot by adb the first time but then did the whole process again a 2nd time using reboot from the phone....
Tried logcat using this command "adb -d logcat>mylogfile.txt"
couldnt find the file anywhere ... if i dont redirect to the txt , it goes too fast to read and there's soo much debug messages what do i need to look for?
I thought it would save me time to get it done through windows... but its taking me as much time it w0uld probably get me with the manual way...
i'll give it a try tomorrow...
8) rebooted fine, and i was still low on space.. so went back in adb sheel to check a2sd --free but this is where it says not active..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tbh I'm really not sure. One thing I forgot to mention in the guide is that you should assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition or it won't show up in Windows. I didn't assign one to my EXT4 partition though, and DATA2SD is working great for me. Try deleting all partitions from the SD card and start again. It'll only take 10 minutes, and if it still doesn't work just use the manual way.
Sorry.

alexhtclegend said:
Tbh I'm really not sure. One thing I forgot to mention in the guide is that you should assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition or it won't show up in Windows. I didn't assign one to my EXT4 partition though, and DATA2SD is working great for me. Try deleting all partitions from the SD card and start again. It'll only take 10 minutes, and if it still doesn't work just use the manual way.
Sorry.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah i assigned a drive letter to FAT32...
Also the FAT32 , was my first block allocated partition, the 2nd partition was EXT3... i will redo the whole process and recreate EXT4 instead.
"DATA2SD is working great for me" ... you mean "A2SD working great for me" ... right? unless i'm missing something else that i needed to run..
ps: I recalled, after it was not working, i took out the sd and put it back in the reader to open MiniTool, it showed EXT2 instead of EXT3 ( which i was sure i chose )... and what's weird is it was reporting used space like 41MB... so obvisouly, the ROM wrote something on it...
Formatting it again to EXT3, didnt delete the 41 Used space, but it did convert it back to EXT3 ...probably nothing but mentioning as well

QkSi1ver said:
Yeah i assigned a drive letter to FAT32...
Also the FAT32 , was my first block allocated partition, the 2nd partition was EXT3... i will redo the whole process and recreate EXT4 instead.
"DATA2SD is working great for me" ... you mean "A2SD working great for me" ... right? unless i'm missing something else that i needed to run..
ps: I recalled, after it was not working, i took out the sd and put it back in the reader to open MiniTool, it showed EXT2 instead of EXT3 ( which i was sure i chose )... and what's weird is it was reporting used space like 41MB... so obvisouly, the ROM wrote something on it...
Formatting it again to EXT3, didnt delete the 41 Used space, but it did convert it back to EXT3 ...probably nothing but mentioning as well
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suggest you start over, something seems to have gone wrong.
A2SD is where the apps are stored on the EXT partition.
DC2SD is where the dalvik cache is also stored on the EXT partition.
DATA2SD is where the entire /data partition on the phone is stored on the EXT partition of the memory card.
Partitioning the SD card with a FAT32 partition and EXT partition is done first, then you decide which one is for you. DATA2SD does have one or two issues, such as the risk of corruption - you'd then have to completely reinstall the ROM. A2SD and DC2SD are fine but I still found myself running out of internal memory.

i gave up and used ROM Manager to create my partition ...i couldnt set it to 1G because 512MB is maximum but it was painless to create.
it asked me to create a swap partition... i've read somewhere that swap partition is useless or barely used in newer android os? do you guys have any swap partition if so how big are they?
Also, did you move Dalvik cache to sd? isnt it slower on SD? i mean shouldnt dalvik cache be on RAM whihc i assume is faster than any external sd?
thanks for your insight

QkSi1ver said:
i gave up and used ROM Manager to create my partition ...i couldnt set it to 1G because 512MB is maximum but it was painless to create.
it asked me to create a swap partition... i've read somewhere that swap partition is useless or barely used in newer android os? do you guys have any swap partition if so how big are they?
Also, did you move Dalvik cache to sd? isnt it slower on SD? i mean shouldnt dalvik cache be on RAM whihc i assume is faster than any external sd?
thanks for your insight
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used the full DATA2SD, which includes Dalvik2SD.

ok so sorry for a double post but im having an issue partitioning.
32 gb card san disk brand new
primary Fat32 10gb
primary Ext2 rest of space
once mini tool is done it sats successful but shows the sd card as Bad disk?!?
is there somthing im doin wrong? is used this guide here http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/SD_card_partitioning
all help deeply appriciated
Acer Iconia Tab A110 rooted, Cwm, 4.1.2

Can you actually have a 22gb ext partition? This might be something to look into to see if you can do it.
Edit: this got me interested so I searched myself, yes you can but apparently it depends on the chosen block size and hardware limitations, so u may have an issue with either.
Sent from my Legend using xda app-developers app

alexhtclegend said:
Firstly, BlaY0 has a great tutorial on how to do this properly, I suggest you do that to learn something.
Secondly, I cannot confirm that this is 100% safe. BlaY0's method should be 99% safe, I don't know about this as it is all automatic. BlaY0's method is tried and tested, this is not. I only used this method as I had a new SD card and I was in a hurry (exams coming up ) and I didn't have time to remind myself of BlaY0's method, and CWM only allows you to create up to 512mb partition. Also, I had a new computer, and I don't have time to set up ADB all over again.
Anyway, this is a method for people who don't want to use ADB to partition their SD card for A2EXT or DATA2EXT (a.k.a. apps2sd, etc etc), and are using Windows. If you're running linux, you could use something like gParted to partition it, not sure about OS X though. This method will allow a Windows user to create an EXT partition on their SD card alongside the FAT partition.
1) Download and install Minitool Partition Wizard, from here.
2) Open the program and delete all partitions from the SD card (which you will have inserted into the computer using an adapter or something). DO NOT DELETE THE PARTITIONS FROM THE HARD DISK! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DELETING. Oh, and make sure the SD card is backed up
3) Create a FAT32 primary partition. You decide how big you want it, but I'd advise you leave 1024mb (1gb) for the EXT partition.
4) Create an EXT2/EXT3/EXT4 (you decide) primary partition. Use up the rest of the space on the SD card.
5) Click assign/OK/whatever and wait for it to complete
6) You now have your partitioned SD card ready for an A2SD ROM!
7) You need to assign a drive letter to the FAT32 partition. Not sure about the EXT partition. At first I forgot to do this and my card didn't show up in Windows, though Partition Magic can still see it.
Like I said, do yourself a favour and use BlaY0's method here, but if you're lazy or you don't have time or ADB doesn't work anymore, use this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hahah! Thanks for you detail guide. It is so helpful for me!

[Q] Need help mounting /system and /data from external SD. Internal SD is dead :/

Hello,
I figure someone here might be able to help since most of where I found information regarding my issue came from this subforum. My phone is i897 (Captivate), but I think it should be similar; I posted there as well but no luck .
I normally can get by pretty well, and I have done numerous searches before posting for help. This time I have really run into a brick wall, and I really need help here.
Basically, I did something really stupid where I did not know that the phone had been booting off a external SD (my mom gave it back to me like that). Actually, I suspected that it did because the phone would have not booted without the card, however, I could flash my phone even if I removed the external SD card (as if the internal SD were there, but it wasn't), but it had always required me to insert the card back in for it to reboot from a flash. So I thought maybe internal SD was fine.
Originally, I had a Samsung 8gb class 6, but I wanted to change it to a 32gb class 10 ( to help the OS run smoother IF it were running on external SD). This is where I made a great mistake; I formatted the 32gb card and made 3 partitions. The first one is in FAT32 of 24 gb, 2nd is in EXT4 4gb, 3rd is the rest in EXT 4 as well. The original setup that was working had about 5.5gb in FAT32 and about 1.88gb of EXT(not sure which). The mistake was that I also formatted the 8gb card as well. In chronological order, these were what has happened:
1. I did a Odin stock reset to 2.3.5 with CWM injected
2. Installed Corn Kernel
3. Formatted both external SDs and repartition as mentioned above
4. At this point, I didn't know there was an issue. CWM sees the external SD and I tried to install CM 10.3 since I read in one of the threads that JB has a weird file systems and it needed to be installed twice to fix sdcard0 and sdcard1
5. CM10.3 installed kernel, and failed afterward since there was no /system and /data. At this point, I have Neat Kernel installed and lost bootloader along with fastboot and cannot access download mode.
6. I have tried to change EXT4 to EXT3 or EXT2 to see if there would be any luck in file system recognition, but no luck
7. The only way I can connect to the phone was through ADB, and verified that my internal SD card was dead because mmcblk0 was not there when I removed external SD
8. I tried to mount mmcblk0p1 (4gb EXT4 partition) and mmcblk0p2 as /system and /data, but I had been getting an error
9. I tried to use USB mount in TWRP, but no additional drive showed up (confirmed dead internal SD)
9. I tried to look for vold.fstabs but /system does not exist. The only *.fstabs file founds were in /etc file (not /system/etc) and is, for example, aries.fstabs
I know for the fact that it can be done because the phone was working before, but I really don't have enough linux knowledge or the what the phone looks at in chronological order in order to figure out how to remedy this. I would really appreciate if someone can guide me to a right direction. Thank you.
Below are major references I have gone through (not including youtube videos, etc..):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1897918
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2199215
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=30415128#post30415128
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31017954&postcount=5335
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=911228
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1463756
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1241574
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=845708&page=2

PMrjn83 said:
Hello,
I figure someone here might be able to help since most of where I found information regarding my issue came from this subforum. My phone is i897 (Captivate), but I think it should be similar; I posted there as well but no luck .
I normally can get by pretty well, and I have done numerous searches before posting for help. This time I have really run into a brick wall, and I really need help here.
Basically, I did something really stupid where I did not know that the phone had been booting off a external SD (my mom gave it back to me like that). Actually, I suspected that it did because the phone would have not booted without the card, however, I could flash my phone even if I removed the external SD card (as if the internal SD were there, but it wasn't), but it had always required me to insert the card back in for it to reboot from a flash. So I thought maybe internal SD was fine.
Originally, I had a Samsung 8gb class 6, but I wanted to change it to a 32gb class 10 ( to help the OS run smoother IF it were running on external SD). This is where I made a great mistake; I formatted the 32gb card and made 3 partitions. The first one is in FAT32 of 24 gb, 2nd is in EXT4 4gb, 3rd is the rest in EXT 4 as well. The original setup that was working had about 5.5gb in FAT32 and about 1.88gb of EXT(not sure which). The mistake was that I also formatted the 8gb card as well. In chronological order, these were what has happened:
1. I did a Odin stock reset to 2.3.5 with CWM injected
2. Installed Corn Kernel
3. Formatted both external SDs and repartition as mentioned above
4. At this point, I didn't know there was an issue. CWM sees the external SD and I tried to install CM 10.3 since I read in one of the threads that JB has a weird file systems and it needed to be installed twice to fix sdcard0 and sdcard1
5. CM10.3 installed kernel, and failed afterward since there was no /system and /data. At this point, I have Neat Kernel installed and lost bootloader along with fastboot and cannot access download mode.
6. I have tried to change EXT4 to EXT3 or EXT2 to see if there would be any luck in file system recognition, but no luck
7. The only way I can connect to the phone was through ADB, and verified that my internal SD card was dead because mmcblk0 was not there when I removed external SD
8. I tried to mount mmcblk0p1 (4gb EXT4 partition) and mmcblk0p2 as /system and /data, but I had been getting an error
9. I tried to use USB mount in TWRP, but no additional drive showed up (confirmed dead internal SD)
9. I tried to look for vold.fstabs but /system does not exist. The only *.fstabs file founds were in /etc file (not /system/etc) and is, for example, aries.fstabs
I know for the fact that it can be done because the phone was working before, but I really don't have enough linux knowledge or the what the phone looks at in chronological order in order to figure out how to remedy this. I would really appreciate if someone can guide me to a right direction. Thank you.
Below are major references I have gone through (not including youtube videos, etc..):
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1897918
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2057004
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2199215
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=30415128#post30415128
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=31017954&postcount=5335
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=911228
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1463756
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1241574
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=845708&page=2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you looked over this guide ? or this ?

Höhenheim said:
Have you looked over this guide ? or this ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. I'll try when I get home to my desktop. For some reason, my laptop does not recognize the phone through adb. It shows "SGH-i897" in device manager with an exclamation mark. And yes, I have tried quite a few drivers, etc... :/
I might need to try this...
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1761968

Höhenheim said:
Have you looked over this guide ? or this ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just had a chance to look at it more thoroughly. The biggest problem for me is that my phone does not have an OS, and it's on semaphore kernel where I cannot access download mode nor fastboot. I have tried to install gingerbread kernel to try to recover download mode/fastboot (speedmods), but I kept running into error 0. I have also tried to modify the su.binary, but that didn't work :/. Any idea how to start? Thanks.

PMrjn83 said:
I just had a chance to look at it more thoroughly. The biggest problem for me is that my phone does not have an OS, and it's on semaphore kernel where I cannot access download mode nor fastboot. I have tried to install gingerbread kernel to try to recover download mode/fastboot (speedmods), but I kept running into error 0. I have also tried to modify the su.binary, but that didn't work :/. Any idea how to start? Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Based on your earlier comments on the partitions failing to mount, you should format: system, data, datadata, cache.

gsstudios said:
Based on your earlier comments on the partitions failing to mount, you should format: system, data, datadata, cache.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I tried. If it doesn't mount at all, how can you format?